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Funk Queen Betty Davis changed the landscape for female artists in America. She "was the first..." as former husband Miles Davis said. "Madonna before Madonna, Prince before Prince". An aspiring songwriter from a small steel town, Betty arrived on the 70's scene to break boundaries for women with her daring personality, iconic fashion and outrageous funk music. She befriended Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, wrote songs for the Chambers Brothers and the Commodores, and married Miles - startlingly turning him from jazz to funk on the album she named "Bitches Brew". She then, despite being banned and boycotted, went on to become the first black woman to perform, write and manage herself. Betty was a feminist pioneer, inspiring and intimidating in a manner like no woman before. Then suddenly - she vanished. Creatively blending documentary and animation this movie traces the path of Betty's life, how she grew from humble upbringings to become a fully self-realized black female pioneer the world failed to understand or appreciate. After years of trying, the elusive Betty, forever the free-spirited Black Power Goddess, finally allowed the filmmakers to creatively tell her story based on their conversations.

Media

Watch trailer »

Track Listing

Bonus Materials

• Director Interview: Phil Cox on the making of Betty - They Say I'm Different
• Interview Extract with Betty Davis

Sales Points

• Redbull Music Festival 2018
• Melbourne International Jazz Fest 2019
• For fans of Miles Davis, Parliament-Funkadelic, Tina Turner, Grace Jones, Sly & the Family Stone, Ohio Players, Bettye LaVette, Bootsy Collins, Prince, Herbie Hancock
• Comparable to films like Whitney: Can I Be Me, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, 20 Feet from Stardom, Searching for Sugar Man
• Way Out West 2018
• CPH:DOX 2018
• Pop Montréal 2018
• IDFA 2017

Press Quotes

Astonishing and tantalising

     —Neil Kulkarni, The Wire

Betty Davis Was a Raw Funk Pioneer. Her Decades of Silence Are Over.

     —Jon Pareles, The New York Times

Gritty funk, progressive sexual politics and eye-popping imagery of a criminally under-valued talent from the '70s.

     —Joe Lynch, Billboard

Honoring the beauty of the artist's enigmatic aura and elusiveness...offering us finally an alternative way to contemplate black women's musicianship without trafficking in tragedy or unveiling privacy.

     —Daphne A. Brooks, Los Angeles Review Of Books

A beautiful sizzling & sweaty film

     —CPH:DOX

Betty was a free spirit...talented as a motherfucker.

     —Miles Davis, Miles - The Autobiography